As a child of the Cold War, I retain a reflexive disdain for Marxism, an ideology I believe negates the better angels of mankind’s nature while arming totalitarian zealots with a seductive gospel to recruit the disgruntled, disenfranchised or downtrodden with the false promise of a proletariat utopia.

Bias aside, I was drawn to “Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life” by Jonathan Sperber, curious to discover who Marx was divorced from the “ism” forever grafted to his name. For those similarly interested in learning how Karl Marx became KARL MARX you’ll find the answer in Sperber’s densely detailed biography.

And I do mean dense.

While Sperber’s research and analysis is thorough, even groundbreaking, as a stylist he’ll never be confused with David McCullough or Doris Kearns Goodwin. “Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life” reads more like a doctoral dissertation than a work for the general public, populated as it is with occasionally incomprehensible mumbo-jumbo like the following passage from page 407:

“The priority of theoretical understanding for the interpretation of empirically gained evidence was a Hegelian heritage, but it was more broadly characteristic of the epistemological program of German idealism.”

But for the stubborn reader there are rewards. Along with sometimes tedious profiles of the various mentors and philosophical influences that shaped Marx’s thinking, including his future father-in-law, Johann Ludwig von Westphalen, G.W.F. Hegel, Eduard Gans, Bruno Bauer, Moses Hess, Charles Darwin and his long, close and symbiotic collaborator, Friedrich Engels, Sperber paints a very human and entertaining portrait of Marx as a doting father and loving, if flawed, husband. (Marx fathered a love child with the housekeeper.) Mrs. Marx did not have it easy.

His was, as advertised, “a nineteenth-century life” and Sperber successfully strips away the stigma of the Cold War and 20th century genocides, allowing Marx to live in the context of his own times.

With 19th century Europe dominated by predatory capitalists, exploitive colonialists and/or archaic feudalism, Marx and fellow radicals believed the world was impervious to reform and, therefore, revolution appeared their only recourse.

Like zealots of nearly any ilk, Marx sought to fit the world into his theories rather than shape his theories to accommodate the world. When the weight of reality could not be answered by dogma, Marx often reversed himself and then viciously attacked others for holding the same views he once passionately advocated himself. For example, Marx began his career as a free trader. While correctly predicting the rise of globalization and the concentration of wealth into fewer and fewer hands, Marx was wrong — and profoundly wrong — more than right.

Prickly, thin-skinned, vindictive and occasionally humorous, Marx could be high-minded (he was passionately anti-slavery during the American Civil War) yet frequently racist and anti-Semitic. Born a Jew, Marx was raised as a Protestant before renouncing all religion. He was also pro-violence, railing against “Peace Mongers” and supporting terrorism as a legitimate tactic for revolutionaries.

Marx was many things: author, editor, publisher, polemicist, economist, demagogue and radical agitator. The one thing he wasn’t was “The Father of Communism,” a title more fittingly applied to Henri de Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier who advocated the collective ownership of private property.

After his death in 1883, Marx’s writings were embraced by a new generation of radicals and elevated to a pseudo-sacred socialist text providing justification for everything from centralized economies to the purges and genocides of Stalin.

Karl Marx was a difficult man to work with and live with and, frankly, he’s not an easy man to read about for 560 pages. Still, “Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life” peels back a century of pro- and anti-Marxist propaganda allowing us to experience a world foreign to the one we occupy.

Unanswered and perhaps unanswerable is how Marx would have felt about the crimes against humanity perpetrated in his name.

Doug McIntyre is a columnist for the LA Daily News and can be heard 5-9 a.m. weekdays on KABC 790 AM.

Join the Conversation

We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. Although we do not pre-screen comments, we reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.

If you see comments that you find offensive, please use the “Flag as Inappropriate” feature by hovering over the right side of the post, and pulling down on the arrow that appears. Or, contact our editors by emailing moderator@scng.com.